


Adilah Exploration

by XQueen0fHellx



Category: Rifts (Roleplaying Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:35:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26767381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XQueen0fHellx/pseuds/XQueen0fHellx
Summary: I tossed Adilah into a few different worlds, I loved her too much. This was me playing with her in the Rifts world where her lion form got gentically changed to shapechange into a humanoid one. There's two bits to this one.





	Adilah Exploration

Adilah paced in her room. The only one present with her right now was Kazim, and he was sprawled across her bed taking up most of it. She didn't mind. She had too much energy to be still anyway.

"It just felt right you know? Which is totally wrong. It should not have felt right. No, not at all." She spoke, half mumbling.

The black maned lion chuckled. "Honey, you're moving on. I get it."

"No no no! I am loyal to you!" She glared at him.

"I'm dead."

"I'll bring you back." Her words were firm, definitive.

"Even if you do, I won't be the same. There's no way to do a resurrection on me, I'd be a mindless zombie like the rest of them, some sort of skeletal thing. Best case scenario, I possibly remember who I am, but I am forced to serve you or whomever brought me back."

"Your freedom. I'll give you as much as I can. Just like Darius. I don't give him orders unless I can't avoid it. Please my upendo. Don't give up on this."

"Just like him. Listen to yourself sweet thing. The similarities between him and myself are just too much for you to overlook. As much as you keep denying it, you are drawn to him because he reminds you of me. Don't feel bad over it. Hold his hand again, do it not just because his blushing is cute, do it because you like it."

Adilah sighed. This was getting to be frustrating. Darius was dead after all. She had no buisness being attracted to him. 

"You've obviously begun to lose it. Need help remembering who you are?"

Adilah whirled at the voice, her eyes narrowing when they came across the curly maned lion near the door. 

"What do you want Helly?" She asked him.

Hellhound simply laughed. "To fix you. You're not yourself. The Adilah I know killed her children because they were weak and she couldn't feel love. Ever since you took it upon yourself to twist his peaceful mind to violence, you got yourself smitten. Northlander curses. They fooled you. Wanted to make you a tamer kitten. Forget them, they're in the past. He was a disgrace to your head to wear his skull. I broke it once, I can do it again. You need to be stronger than this my queen."

Helly was right. She allowed Kazim to change her, even if it was only a bit of softness for him and their cubs. She frowned, she hated feeling weak, and that was a weakness she had given herself.

"You would have made an excellent mate for her Hellhound."

This voice filled her with dread, and Adilah did not wish to turn to see him. She refused. He wasn't there. Just ignore him. Maybe he'll go away. 

The voice continued. "You're quite sizeable, and have a level head. You understand the ideals that are needed to survive. You would have made an excellent father, making strong cubs to continue on the family."

"Shut up father." Adilah said, although her voice held no conviction.

A snarl and the lion was in her face, she couldn't avoid him as she backed againsy the wall, terrified. He was similar to Kazim, but his eyes held evil and malice like hers, and a dark stripe which she inherited ran across his shoulder.

"You have no right to call me that. I said you could only call me by my name until you have proven your strength. You think killing me would make up for the fact you fell in love? What a stupid cub."

She hung her head in shame. "Yes Mauaji." She said meekly.

"That's better. Now get your ass up and quit your sniveling. I don't want to see him the next time I visit, nor do I want to hear about you being attracted to that vampire, no matter how pretty he may be." The lion thst was her father growled as he strode away, and as he did, all three males in the room faded from her mind. 

Alone, Adilah wiggled out of her armor, throwing it aside. The one being she feared most in this world still haunted her even after she murdered him. He had said he was proud of his daughter with his dying breath, and yet, she knew years later he would no longer be proud. 

Unable to bring herself to the bed, she collapsed against the wall, crying softly. How did everything go so horribly wrong?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She wasn’t really possessed, just crazy. Not that she knew that. No, Adilah was convinced that the voices of those she deemed dead still spoke to her. Their conduit was the skull she wore upon her head, that once belonging to her mate Kazim. It was unknown if the sentient sword who shared a place in her mind also heard them, or if anyone who could listen to her thoughts could hear the voices, or if they were just figments of her imagination.

When she closed her eyes, there they all were, sitting in her room with her, and when she opened them, ghostly forms wisped at the edges of her vision. She was delusional, but that had nothing on the insanities raging within her mind.

Earlier in the day, she had been verbally attacked once again by her companions. They claimed they could not trust her, there was even a thinly veiled threat of killing her if she stepped out of line. That kind of behavior had been unwarranted. She was always treated like the bad guy, even though not once was there any reason to do so. She had never lied to them, never hurt them, never betrayed them in any way. Perhaps now she should change that. If that was what they believed, she would not be able to change their minds.

“Mother, just leave them be already. They’re nothing to you anymore.” The voice came from one of her youngest, Talia, the weakling. She died young, just like her sister in the middle litter. Sickly runtish cubs.

Before Adilah could speak, a male voice rumbled. “Oh no dear sister, If we leave them, it will be loose ends. Better to finish them off now.” That was Murdoc, the behemoth of a son she birthed. 

“Easy for you to say Mr. Muscles. Not all of us here are built for fighting. And you saw what one drop of the dragon blood did to the human. Now that, that’s power.” That was Kida, and if she was male, well damn, she would have been a striking image of her father.

Speaking of Kazim, he was resting against her side, and her hand rested upon his head, scratching in his mane. The black tendrils fell through her fingers and tumbled against his darker red pelt. His eyes were closed, and she sensed no arguments coming from him for either side, content to listen and be with her.

“Now now Kida, you can’t say you’re not built for fighting. You nearly killed me.” Adilah chuckled, the scar on her throat a prominent reminder.

Rolling her eyes, Kida turned away, disgusted. She was often the biggest voice for peace, which was funny, since her older brother was once the king of the most peaceful pride in the area.

“I believe the best option here is to weaken them. Not kill them yet, but make them hesitate to want to come after you. Emotions are a weakness. Find what they care for, and take it out. They’ll have nothing left to fight for.” Her red eyes met those of Busara, the emotionless sociopath that fathered two of her cubs. His hetrochromic eyes, one blue, one red, stared back, and behind him, his grandson came into focus. Both blonde lions were two peas in the same pod, Kudanfakari and Busara were often who she deferred to whenever she let her heart get in the way of things.

“Excellent idea. Although, I have no clue where to start.”

“Start simple mother.” The grunt came from the blonde lion that looked like he fell between Kudan and Busara on the family tree. His crooked jaw and scarred pelt should have looked strong, but instead, he seemed like the oldest lion in the room. He rarely spoke up, rather despising his mother most days. He blamed her for Elak’s kidnapping, and hated that she had named him heir. Forcing him to pick a female mate for his queen had been the last straw, and now he rarely even acknowledged her existence, often sitting quiet in the corner of her mind.

“Ignore him mom.” This time the voice came from her reflection, the male equivalent of herself. Even if he hadn’t been born to look like her, Elak might have still remained her favorite. She went to war for him, did her damndest to save him from the Northern Pride, and he made her proud by seducing the heir and becoming her king to rule over another territory. “He’s just an old grump. Besides, you have an army of zombies, what’s to stop you? Also, I love the fact my namesake smells like flowers. Reminds me of home.” 

“Thank you dearie, but we don’t have an entire army of zombies, only a few.” Adilah frowned, knowing that wasn’t going to help her much. She needed to boost her numbers.

A large presence stepped into the room then, one that she hadn’t seen in quite a long time. “Raruo!” She called out, and she left her place by Kazim’s side to hug him around the neck, getting an armful of fluffy mane in the process. Besides Murdoc, he was the largest lion in the room. As he had been in life, scars ran across his underbelly, revealing his castration, and the cause of Adilah looking for mates to give her strong cubs. He was her first mate, and while she didn’t love him, and he was much older than her anyhow, he had been heir before his fateful fight with his father, the current king at the time, and he was a good mentor to her over the years.

Kazim looked up at the larger lion and gave a curt nod of respect before putting his head back down. Adilah returned to her spot on the bed beside him, scratching him behind the ear like he loved.

“You don’t visit enough.” She frowned, glaring at him.

“Apologies. It could be you just don’t think of me enough.”

She started to protest but he held up a paw to cut her off. “Adilah, don’t kid yourself. Build your army. Make it bigger. Use people that won’t be missed too terribly, but also those that your companions know. If they have to face them in battle, it will weaken their resolve. It's a safeguard. Even though it isn't really them anymore, empathy might cause them to be unable to continue on.”

“Yes, yes, that might just work! But who shall I use?” the queen asked, pondering on what she knew.

The red pupiled son, Godric, spoke next. “As far as we know, Cliff has no family left. Sam is a true atlantean, potentially they are across the megaverse or in Atlantis, and to be honest, you can't take that right now. Jackie is an ally to you, and more vampires isn't going to help much. You can't truly control more. Cooper is an unknown. You could get to know him better and see. Iolani is stuck as a lemur in a carpet. He's practically neutered for now, and honestly, we don't know enough about his kind to march against them. Voltanis might be a good loyal servant in the future, no need to fuck with him. That really just leaves Esmerelda. The gypsys were kind to everyone. Hell, the children made good impressions on everyone. That's the logical choice to start with.”

Her son did have a point, and the more she thought on it, the better it sounded. 

“Then it's settled. We can take out the gypsys and bolster our ranks a good amount while we work at it.”

“Don't kill them all.” The black pelt that signified Zola smirked. “Use them the best you can. You have ways to make someone more than just a zombie. And besides, children are so impressionable. Why waste such good minds? Teach them as you taught us mother.” Zola was a reminder of what a properly raised child could grow to be. She was military minded, she took over and ruled a pride all on her own, and even managed to have friends and family that trusted her, and never saw how much she used all of them. She was one of Adilah's pride and joy cubs, and the human form lioness smiled every time she thought of the black daughter's accomplishments.

“Fair enough. Now, we must plan.”


End file.
